Castling

by Jack McGlynn

  Walking around, the Boss placed a calming hand on Gil’s titanic shoulder,

  “Easy, you’re not on trial. This one’s plenty sly, kids, and he’s more than a little robust! Fact is, it took half the continent’s metas to rope this scrawny prick last time.

  He’s sharp, he’s dangerous and far too many people are scared witless of him.

  So this time, we’re taking a crack at it!”

  The Boss allowed a moment for this most basic of information to permeate. Evidently, her squad felt vital data was best digested with a side of incessant questioning. She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose for strength.

  Ron looked to his team, subtle glances and facial tics conveying queries. Their concerns were mainly sub-vocal, subliminal and pitched at frequencies attuned to cochlear implants.

  True to form, Team Leap proved less discreet.

  “I certainly wouldn’t lament the chance to redeem myself.” Gil mumbled, leaning back, folding vast arms across a barrelled chest.

  “You had your chance tubby,” Hatch growled, banging a scarred fist on the table, “Time to give the rest of us a shot. See if we can’t come up with something smarter than Duh, hit him real hard!”

  Once the pride and joy of the meta-human community, Gil’s brown eyes darkened. Praying he’d be spared the indignity of trying (and failing) to deflect Gilgamesh’s warpath, Rook was relieved when Molly, reaching across TG, grabbed a fist-load of Hatch’s collar.

  “You! Shut your fat mouth shut until told otherwise.”

  Released, Hatch straightened the bunched fabric of his uniform, scowling at the sniggering forms across the table.

  “Although I feel kind of dirty for even suggesting it, Hatch might be right.” TG sighed. Tilting forward, she refilled her water. Her bright round eyes caught Rook staring. A grin crept into her cheeks, before she quickly returned focus to her Boss and Captain, “Maybe our best move is just a pile-on. Take no chances.”

  The Boss gripped the table corners in long, bony fingers. Everyone seemed wise enough to stop gabbing.

  “Rook’s going to do him.”

  This time, a stunned silence accompanied their digestion.

  I am?...

  Ten pairs of eyes fixed upon his still healing face, Rook ensured he didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, didn’t betray so much as the slightest hint of apprehension. Or excitement. Instead his features retained their casual indifference, as if he’s just been asked to flick over the kettle, not go toe to toe with one of the most dangerous men in living memory.

  Stunned by the implied significance, Team Look chattered away inaudibly. Extrasensory communications, infrared data and unsettling astral projections bounced back and forth.

  Elsewhere, Breaker returned to his chewing, boredom conquering him once more.

  Leaning back, Molly shot Rook a curious glance. Her features crinkled, devoid of their usual lure, replaced instead with... Is that concern?

  Gil, TG and Hatch all exchanged shots of confusion, chased with outrage and sprinkled with a hint of doubt. But the Boss had said her piece, and they had sufficient sense to bite their tongues.

  Or at least, Gil and TG did.

  “Boss, seriously?! That’s moronic. You’ be better off sending Ron... You’ve got to be takin’ the piss right?” Hatch veritably spat across the table.

  Another silence befell the conference room, though to Rook, it felt sinister, not stunned.

  As Hatch’s captain, Molly rose from her chair without comment. Her countenance collected, she stepped past TG, closing the distance toward her insolent subordinate. A Stanley knife was in her hand.

  Hatch screamed.

  Molly stopped, still three feet away, watching as he clutched his left wrist. His watch sizzled, its casing white hot. The dishevelled man grunted, drooling, sweat dripping from his brow as he struggled with its clasp. The stink of burning hair, melting nail and scalding flesh wafted through the room.

  Molly spared her Boss a cursory glance. Her cornea pulsed with a phosphoric hue.

  As the searing wristwatch dropped onto the chrome beneath, Hatch buried his burning limb under an armpit. His teeth ground with the pain. The viral strain in his blood got to work, healing.

  “Consider this a mercy on my part, Hatchet,” the Boss’ gentle voice warned, the glow fading from her gaze, “I’d wager my Lieutenant had a somewhat more severe reprimand in store. So next time, just do as Molly asks, and let the grown-ups talk.”

  Molly stood slack jawed. Mercifully, she was in good company.

  She had planned to place the blade at his neck. But only to scare the hairy blighter. At most, nick him a little. Molly had not planned to inflict third degree burns while the entire organisation looked on in horror. Yet with a single cross glance, the Boss had reaffirmed Molly’s authority.

  And her own.

  Rook re-evaluated his earlier position. This disparate group of talented, strong-willed individuals never stood a chance.

  “If I may...” Ron enquired to the supremely composed woman at the table’s head, no inflection in his tone, “Recent evidence suggests Rook might actually prove Lancet’s physical equal. Some preliminary analysis of the blood and serum extracted earlier is complete.” Ron traced further gestures on the table. Graphics illuminated at its centre.

  “Those were military grade augmentations. The kind developed to fist-fight tanks. Nothing on Gilgamesh’s level, but still, Rook should not be standing. Or breathing. Or circulating blood.

  The fact he insists on doing so suggests the data he provided, regarding his condition, was grossly, deliberately inaccurate. As the one charged with precisely gauging our individual limits, I would like to publically express my gratitude to Rook for giving me yet more work to do.

  Honestly, thank you. I had no real interest in sleeping tonight. I actually find the tedium of daily rest quite inconvenient.

  And congratulations on coming to the realisation that those forms I made you sign were solely for your own amusement. It always makes the science a lot easier when “Meh! A little tough, maybe...” is scrawled into the Nature of Augmentation field.”

  Ron’s transition from informative sincerity to seething sarcasm was flawless.

  “I’m sorry for surviving, Ron...?” Rook ventured, smiling, shrugging his folded arms.

  “You’re sorry? I’m the one who has to fill all this in again” the red haired lieutenant complained summoning forth Rook’s assessment form, incorrectly entered two weeks prior.

  “Fighting’s more than just taking punishment.” Gil assured his friend, resting a hand on Ron’s shoulder. And the bulk of his upper torso. “Besides, which military’s grade, eh? Some of them just aren’t that reliable!” he added, winking in TG’s direction. She pouted, shaking a gloved fist in feigned offence.

  The rumble of hearty debate reared once more.

  Half the table brainstormed, deciphering the best means of uncovering Lancet’s whereabouts: transaction trails, surveillance hacks, coerced informants, astral breadcrumbs. But Team Look’s quiet musings were drowned out by the heated quarrelling of Gil, Hatch and TG.

  “Just because he bloodied some noses, including his own, I might add...”

  “Well, there’s obviously something to him, but...”

  “Naturally! The Boss wouldn’t have picked him otherwise. Yet still...”

  Rook was impressed by the sudden proficiency at walking on eggshells. They each took special care not to blatantly accuse their leader of misjudgement. Again.

  No-one in the organisation was actually stupid.

  Molly’s worried stare soon caught his eye. Hands squeezed together, the look of concern painting her face was flattering, and not altogether unwarranted.

  I am still a little rusty... Rook mused, playing fast and loose with the definition of the term little. And rusty.

  Unable to offer consolation, Rook simply shrugged. He figured the gesture ambiguous enough to save him some face in the event of either victor
y or defeat.

  Breaker stood.

  Naturally, something died as a result. In this instance, it was the conversation.

  “You thought this through?” Breaker rasped, staring down, the silver of his beard glistening in the artificial light, “Give me the nod and Lancet dies: In the time and manner of your choosing...”

  Rook stared up at the man. Two metres of cold confidence, musculature bulged as steel cables beneath taught grey skin, only the slightest weathering of which could be found about the eyes, the cheeks. These were the sole hints as to his age. Far less vague was his design. It was in the name...

  “When have you known me not to think things through?” The Boss whispered back, the only person in the room, if not the planet, not intimidated by the man, “You butchering him benefits us not one jot. Lancet has to live.”

  The Boss stood then, announcing loudly,

  “Rook is not going to kill him.”

  I’m not?

  “Rook is going to petrify him.”

  I am?

  Turning, the Boss angled herself so Rook was incorporated into her view of the team she’d assembled not six months previously,

  “It’s up to you how you get this done. But we need this bugger broken. I don’t care if it’s poison or brainwashing, if you use a kitchen knife or the heel of your boot. Whatever.

  But we need this villain scared. We need him terrified. Not just of you, but of us. Of what we might do to him, tomorrow morning or far off in the future or just whenever we feel like it. Lancet has to break.

  Oh, and we need him to tell his friends...”

  *

  “Ron, you busy?”

  Rook slunk into the lieutenant’s cluttered workspace. Three workbenches, six desktops, one whiteboard and a dozen instruments whose utility he couldn’t fathom given an hour (and a search engine) bordered an impressive, wall-consuming glass interface. Rook would fervidly contest the likelihood six people could work together in such cramped confines, was he not staring directly at them.

  Team Look worked in quiet unison, diligence and efficiency, doubtless facilitated by Ron’s short range ESP and Sabrina’s motivating pheromones.

  “Always busy, Rook. Was that not obvious?”

  Rook chuckled, pulling the door behind him as he squeezed inside.

  “Painfully apparent... Ron, are you too busy to help me catch this Lancet chap?”

  The clack of keys and scrape of mice halted. They each turned to him individually, peering over monitors, pulling out ear-buds, swivelling in their seats. Ron spoke on their behalf,

  “Never too busy for a priority mission, Rook... That’s what priority means.”

  Confused, Rook pulled himself to his full height, baggy t-shirt still a muddy red from the morning’s excursions.

  “Then why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?”

  “No. That’s not his ghost face...” Hinge, their resident Shaman (for lack of a more scientific descriptor) chimed from his carpet in the corner.

  “It’s just the others never ask for help with these sort of cases,” Ron elaborated, as Hinge returned his interest to the baubles of turquoise transparency floating before him, “Molly’s gene therapy makes her ideally suited for pattern recognition. Hatchet’s strain allows for heightened olfaction. TG’s implants are attuned to specific signatures in the EM spectrum.

  And Breaker, well, you know...”

  Rook actually didn’t know. But given the room promptly shrugged in agreement, he was willing to make an educated guess.

  “And they’ve never asked for your help?” He queried, disbelieving. To wilfully ignore a resource designed to process intelligence suggested a distinct lack of it.

  Wendy, a long Englishwoman about Rook’s age and enthusiastic enough for the whole team, fielded this query,

  “Well of course, we do the leg-work, research, analysis, data-entry...

  But not for the really urgent stuff, no chance! When something needs doing and fast, I guess the gut reaction is to...” she sighed, “Leap.”

  The fifteen year old Asian girl to Wendy’s left groaned disapprovingly.

  Nodding, Rook reclined against the nearest bench. Clearing a (possible) screwdriver from the space, he began whirling it between his fingers.

  “Well, my gut reaction tells me this target might be too damn sharp to leave us any breadcrumbs. So, rather than start at a disadvantage, chasing him down, following his trail, I’m hoping between us we can figure out where he’ll eventually end up.

  And have a surprise waiting when he gets there.”

  Team Look conferred for a brief moment in the usual fashion. The only suggestion of their joint consultation being the faint green shade emanating from Hinge’s gaunt eye sockets.

  Ron addressed his tall visitor, his expression even, his tone level,

  “After much deliberation,”

  “Really?!”

  “We’ve decided to halt other projects and assist you in this priority assignment.”

  Wendy jumped in, resting a slender arm across Ron’s slenderer shoulders,

  “And in case it’s not obvious from Ronald’s flat lifeless inflection, we’re actually all delighted you asked! But a problem arises; to begin our investigation we require an intuitive...” she stared down at the girl beside her, beaming, “leap.”

  “Seriously?!” Jo complained once more, eyes vacant.

  Ron explained, “Hard as this might be to process, hunches and instincts are not my area of expertise.”

  Smiling, Rook threw the spinning tool, catching it as he approached the team. He leaned over the lieutenant’s shoulder, hand on the back of his chair to better view the monitor.

  “You know Ron, if this gig doesn’t work out, you could try your hand at some stand-up.”

  “I would have thought that obvious.” Ron droned.

  “You needn’t worry; I actually have a little intuition on the boil. But first I need some evidence. Any chance you can feed me the Tartarus CCTV?”

  “And he says I’m the comedian” Ron grumbled, instantly pasting an exceptionally clear, fluid recording into the central Smartglass terminal.

  It featured the same smug figure from the conference room, strolling unhindered from the gates of France’s super-prison. Lancet walked free of the Tartarus compound. Clad head to toe in demeaning pink (save the arterial spray cutting across his front), he sauntered into the surrounding forestry of the French Alps.

  The time-stamp placed it at nine hours ago.

  “That man had help...” Rook’s inductive reasoning suffered the misfortune of sounding an awful lot like stating the obvious. A fact Wendy was happy to pounce upon.

  “You should donate that brain to science, sir!” the slender woman sneered, tying back auburn curls.

  “We’re after leaps and bounds, Mr Rook. This isn’t intuitive Hopscotch.” Sabs admonished from across the room in mock reproach. A snappily dressed young woman, Sabrina hoped to distract from her relative inexperience with chirp, respect and diligence. Rook would be impressed if such positivity survived another month.

  “Why everyone avoids this room is fast becoming clear,” Rook smiled, continuing his reasoning, “So, he had help. And it’s a safe bet said help’s IQ is significantly lower, thus more likely to leave their own trail. We follow it instead.

  Now, not to speak ill of the dead, but what are the chances one of those prison guards was on the take?

  Which, for the record, I’m hoping is still a thing people say...”

  “Pretty good actually,” Wendy responded, catching up, her fingers a blur of depressed keys, “Discrepancies in two of the eight bank accounts.”

  “Define discrepancy.” Ron insisted.

  “Twin payments of fifty thousand euro.”

  “Oh, discrepancy.”

  Patting Ron and Wendy on the back, Rook stood again, retreated to the workbench. Replacing the screwdriver, he massaged his shoulder. That Tesco ceiling had done it few favours.
/>   “See? Breadcrumbs. So, follow that money, maybe sweep the guard’s emails and phones for informat-“

  “Rook.” Ron interrupted, face inches from his monitor, fingers dancing across his keyboard.

  “Ron?”

  “This is the part we’re very good at. Will let you know what we come up with, but it’ll take a bit of time...”

  “Alright so, are we talking hours?”

  “Pfft,” Wendy’s mouth leaked, “Twenty, thirty minutes tops.”

  “Excellent, so just give me a buzz when you’re done.”

  “Will send Wendy.” Ron corrected, “Faster.”

  The woman’s eyebrows bounced twice, before she threw herself back into the search. Her digits bounced across a trio of keyboards at inhuman speeds.

  “I believe you.

  Okay, talk to you later, Lady. I’m off to see a tower about a crane...”

  *

  “Enter” beckoned the silken voice beyond the heavy door. Rook slid both hands into the gigantic latch and pulled.

  As expected, Gil’s room was appropriately oversized, furnishings scaled to accommodate a man almost half a ton in weight. A table, chair and bed of reinforced alloys framed what Rook struggled to describe as anything other than a shrine to the former Middle-Eastern idol.

  The only aspect of Gil’s quarters not comically oversized were the myriad photographs, paper clippings and magazine spreads framed and hung across the four walls. A cabinet crafted to accommodate hands the size of spades housed almost two dozen medals and ribbons, awards denoting past glories and achievements.

  Gil’s lodgings stood as a mausoleum to prouder days, happier times.

  Rook whistled long and low. The room celebrated the hero Gilgamesh had been, not only to his people, but to the wider world. The scene would honestly struggle to further contrast the vast being slumped lethargically in his armchair, sipping whiskey straight from the decanter at two in the afternoon.

  “Vanity” Gil started, gesturing with a spare hand to the case, “is not a quality deemed respectable in any social sphere I’ve yet encountered. But still...”

  The giant paused to wet his lips, sipping the golden beverage, “... each of those self same spheres encourage, demand maybe, that we strive for achievement, for excellence, for triumph.